The big news this year is that once again New York City continues to set the pace for all cities across the state. After 12 years of an ambitious reform agenda, New York City schools are nearly tracking the rest of the state.

It is surprising that the Department of Education would celebrate the return of 1,100 ineffective teachers back into the classrooms of our most vulnerable children. Semantic games aside, a world-class school system is not built on a foundation that gives preferential treatment to the lowest-performing teachers.